No. 19 SDSU vs. Cal State Bakersfield

Site/time: Viejas Arena/7 p.m. Wednesday

TV/radio: Time Warner Cable SportsNet/AM-600, FM-101.5

Records: SDSU is 11-2, Bakersfield is 6-10.

Series: This is the first meeting.

Aztecs outlook: They dropped two spots in this week’s Associated Press poll to No. 19 and one spot in the coaches poll to No. 17, but they moved up considerably in RPI – from near 100 before the Diamond Head Classic to 43. SDSU has won 30 straight against schools from California and 34 straight regular-season games against unranked nonconference opposition. Dwayne Polee is questionable after banging his head at practice Sunday and suffering headaches. Jamaal Franklin says his bad back is slowly improving, rating the pain a 4 out of 10.

Roadrunners outlook: This is technically the only Div. I men’s basketball program in California that SDSU has never played, but the Roadrunners only achieved full-fledged Div. I status in 2010. They won NCAA Div. II titles in 1993, 1994 and 1997. They have won two of their last three games, beating Mississippi Valley State, losing to Loyola Marymount and beating North Carolina A&T on Dec. 30. Stephon Carter (15.4) is the leading scorer. Four players average at least 4.5 rebounds. Kregg Jones, a 6-8 redshirt sophomore from Barbados, attended Army-Navy Academy in Carlsbad.

--MARK ZEIGLER

San Diego State concludes its nonconference schedule Wednesday night at Viejas Arena against a Cal State Bakersfield team that has an RPI of 263 (out of 347 schools), doesn’t belong to a conference, is in only its third season of full NCAA Division I status, is 1-7 on the road and lost by 18 to Sacramento State.

Jamaal Franklin can’t wait to play.

Against somebody. Anybody.

It’s been eight days since SDSU last played, a 68-67 loss to No. 3 Arizona on Christmas Day in the Diamond Head Classic final in Honolulu. Eight long days for Franklin. It was a tough loss all around for the No. 19-ranked Aztecs, and no one took it more personally than their junior forward. He had to be physically helped from the floor by teammates and, Coach Steve Fisher said, was “emotional” in the locker room.

Franklin took just six shots and finished with nine points, ending a 32-game streak of double-figure scoring. He still had eight rebounds and a career-high six assists against a single turnover, and he was 5 of 6 from the line.

What still needles him, though, is the lone free throw he missed.

It came with 31 seconds left in a tie game. He made the second of two free throws for a 67-66 lead, only for Arizona to get two free throws from Mark Lyons with 13.1 seconds left and a jaw-dropping flying block from Nick Johnson with three seconds left to seal it.

“That’s what I play for,” said Franklin, who is shooting 81.3 percent from the line (65 of 80) since the wind-blown season opener against Syracuse on an aircraft carrier. “I always want the last shot. I always want to be in that position. I got put in that position and blew it.

“I miss free throws, everybody misses free throws. But when it’s that time, when it’s crunch time, I’ve got to make those. I take that loss. I told my teammates, ‘That’s my fault.’ If I make that free throw, we’re still playing right now. I let us down. I have to step up in bigger games like that. I messed up.”

Coach Steve Fisher gave his players four days off after the Arizona game. Franklin didn’t go home. He stayed in San Diego to rehab his ailing back, and to shoot free throws.

The day after returning from Hawaii, before he did anything else in the gym, he stepped to the line and shot 100.

“He took it too hard, I think, in the moment, right afterwards,” Fisher said. “But I think he’s fine now. He can’t obsess over it. He came out and played and practiced hard. I didn’t see any lingering affect.

“Obviously, it wasn’t his fault. You win, you lose, we’re all together. He expects, I expect him, to make free throws. That’s what he does. He didn’t make that one. He’s not the first guy not to make a free throw. Hopefully when the next one comes and he’s there, he’ll make it.”

Fisher was more concerned about two other areas from the Diamond Head Classic final.

Turnovers: SDSU had 16 to Arizona’s eight. The Aztecs (11-2) are averaging 13, three more than the goal Fisher set for Mountain West conference play, which begins Jan. 9 at Fresno State.

“You can’t turn the ball over,” Fisher said. “We talked about that. We watched all (16) of them with the team. You can’t turn the ball over the way we did and give an opponent eight extra opportunities and possessions than you get.”

Blow-bys: Also known as straight-line dribble drives by your opponent from the perimeter into the lane.

“I counted 15 (against Arizona), where we didn’t stay in front of our man,” Fisher said. “They didn’t score on all of them. But we’ve got to do a better job of guarding our yard, as we say, of staying in front of them.”

The other Franklin

Fisher said junior guard LaBradford Franklin will not suit up against Cal State Bakersfield and has left the team indefinitely. Franklin, who has played 20 total minutes in three games, did not accompany the Aztecs to Hawaii due to what Fisher called a “family situation.”

Fisher declined to elaborate this week.

“He’s not going to be with us until he gets everything in order, and I don’t know when that will be,” Fisher said. “He’s not transferring. Never say never, but right now he’s not transferring. He’s dealing with other personal issues in his life. It’s indefinite right now, and I don’t know what that will mean."